


Breathing

by NoMercy



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Walking Dead Fusion, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, BAMF Steve Rogers, Blood and Gore, First Meetings, Friends to Lovers, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt Steve, Hurt Tony, M/M, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Walkers (Walking Dead)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 01:31:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7665103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoMercy/pseuds/NoMercy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <b>Alive:</b>
  <br/>
  <i>Adjective<br/>Definition: Living, not dead</i>
</p>
<p>Tony doesn't realize how not alive he actually is, until a tiny blonde man with the angry blue eyes lays into him for being 'selfish' and 'careless' while at the same time slicing through a corpse's head with a hubcap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ambereen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ambereen/gifts).



 

 

The only reason Tony is still alive right now is because the dog had been bleeding.

 

Maybe it had gotten shot by some fearful parent – maybe it had gotten into a fight with another animal – maybe it had already been bit, too domesticated and trusting of anything that walked on two legs and reached for it – whatever. It had been spilling blood from its back left quarter, whining pitifully but trying to walk. Trying to follow Tony, as if Tony could have saved it. His salvation had been that the dog’s injury had forced it to walk slow, follow so far back that the corpses, given the choice between an easy smaller meal or a hard larger one, had chosen to descend upon the dog rather than on him.

 

From across the street, tucked against the brick of a building in a sun-eaten alley that smells as bad as the rest of the world, he watches that dog die, its whines louder and higher but still just whines, corpses ripping into its body even though it’s still alive, pulling out organs and shoving them into their lipless mouths, blood squishing out like waterfalls. Poor thing probably just wants a pat, probably just wants to be comforted while it dies the way that animals are when they’re being euthanized.

 

Tony doesn’t want to offer that, but he wishes he were over there. Instead of it. Whether or not that would mean it lives, he doesn’t really care. He just … wishes he were there instead.

 

Being eaten instead of walking through the streets of the goddamn outskirts of _Atlanta_. Being _done._

 

_‘Just shut up,’_ he thinks as the dog continues to whine. It’s looking in his direction, sort of, still wanting him. _‘Just die already. I’d just die. I wouldn’t scream at all.’_

 

One of the corpses, dull-eyed but snarling and once a blonde-haired woman, latches without warning onto the dog’s ear, and it yelps, loud and carrying in echo across the buildings. The sound is going to call others, the hundreds of other corpses that are wandering this part of the city that are desperate for a meal, just the taste of blood-soaked meat.

 

It makes Tony jerk, stumbling back, away from the animal’s sight.

 

_No._

 

_‘I’m not dying in motherfucking Georgia.’_

**Author's Note:**

> (Does it still qualify as a 'belated' birthday gift if it's over 2 months late?) (of course it does) (happy 'belated' birthday, darling!)


End file.
